SACRAMENTO -- Standing with school leaders from San Diego County to Shasta County, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday called his education funding plan a civil rights "cause for the children of California" as he tries to persuade reluctant members of his own party to include his proposal in the upcoming state budget.

The Democratic governor wants to give school districts more control of the money they receive from the state and provide poorer districts with a larger share of state aid.

Brown is running into resistance from his own party, including lawmakers who represent affluent areas that would not gain as much under his plan.

Democrats in the state Senate plan to propose an alternative that does not include extra money for districts where more than half of students are low-income.

"This is a matter of equity and civil rights," Brown said at a news conference. "If people want to fight it, they're going to get the battle of their lives because I'm not going to give up until the last hour."

Brown is expected to update his budget proposal in mid-May and lawmakers have until June 15 to adopt a balanced budget.

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, said she agrees with the governor's aims to provide more local control and more financial aid to English language learners, students from poor families and foster children. But the lawmaker, who represents prosperous San Francisco Bay area communities such as Walnut Creek and Orinda, said the governor is wrong to pit rich suburbs against poor communities.

She said she would like to raise the base grant amount to every school district for essential items such as textbooks and maintain some existing funding rules.

"It looks like the governor is taking the gloves off, and we're still here working on a solution," she said.

Brown's budget plan includes an increase of $2.7 billion for elementary and secondary education and community colleges for the fiscal year starting July 1.

Spending on K-12 and two-year colleges would total $56.2 billion for 2013-14 -- a figure that would return the state to levels seen before the recession.

Brown's proposal retains the current system of awarding money based on attendance, but it could add up to 35 percent more funding for a district based on the proportion of English learners, foster children and low-income students.

Districts with more than half of their student population classifying as low-income, as measured by free or reduced price lunch participants, could receive a total of $2.5 billion in additional funds once the formula is implemented over several years.

Brown said the state has an obligation to provide more help to low-income districts -- a move he argues will have a more powerful effect than spreading money to all districts. The governor noted that nearly 60 percent of students are either from families that make less than $23,000 a year or speak a language other than English.

"You've seen the scores," he said. "Why is California so much at the bottom? Because we have so many poor kids and we have so many kids who don't speak English."

Santa Ana Unified School District Superintendent Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana said the state's sixth-largest district in Orange County would be able to provide summer school programming under the governor's proposal. Among the district's 56,000 students, 87 percent participate in free and reduced priced meal programs and 82 percent are current or former English learners, she said.

"It is not uncommon for some of our students to live in unstable living conditions where basic items such as food, shelter and clothing are not readily available," she said.

Melendez de Santa Ana gave the example of a 14-year-old girl living in a garage and a high school junior who lives in a gang-infested neighborhood and wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to take a bus to school.

Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said Tuesday that Senate Democrats agree with the fundamental goals and concepts in Brown's proposal but plan to propose a bill that would take a "lift all boats" approach by providing extra grants to disadvantaged students no matter where they live.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy said it would be unacceptable if Democratic lawmakers didn't include the governor's grant strategy in the budget.

An April poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found seven in 10 adults -- and just 60 percent of likely voters -- support the governor's plan to direct more funding to English learners and low-income students. But 78 percent of adults support his plan to give local school districts more flexibility over funding.